“Goats,” said he, “are horrid things.”
“Do you know,” quoth John, “I really have a slight partiality towards goats myself.”
Which speech would have savoured more strongly of truth had the partiality remained unqualified.
CHAPTER V
MURAL PAINTINGS
John walked up the flagged path of the churchyard. Sounds of work came to him through the little Norman doorway—the beating of hammers, the rasping of saws, the jangle of buckets.
Arrived at the doorway he paused for a moment to look at the scene before him. It would seem almost incredible that order should ever be abstracted from the present chaos, at all events in the space of time proposed. Doorless, windowless,—in the matter of glass,—it was a mere shell of a church, filled with scaffolding, planks, barrows, buckets; echoing with the ceaseless sound of hammering, sawing, chiselling, planing; while, within the shell, the creators of the various noises moved and worked like a handful of restless ants.
John looked towards the scaffolding surrounding the east window. Perched high on a narrow planked platform was Corin, absorbed in his work, entirely lost to the sounds around him.
John picked his way among the scattered débris made for the chancel. Here there was a ladder roped against a lower platform, from whence, by means of a second ladder placed thereon, Corin’s eyrie might be gained. John had his foot on a rung of the first ladder in a trice, swarmed up it, and a second or so later was giving Corin warning of his approach by:
“Behold the little cherub perched aloft.”
Corin turned.